By Abdikadir Sugow
Enormous development challenges await most counties as the local Cabinet –the County Executive Committees, are formally constituted.
The authorities, whose chief accounting officers will be the Governors, are expected to address social-economic issues which range from provision of adequate clean water, basic health care services and education, food security to road infrastructure.
As they officiated the first sitting of local county assemblies on Thursday, the leaders promised to fulfill high expectations of Kenyans as crucial public services move from the central government to the local level.
The residents expect their county leaders to take up their roles in the new devolved system of governance and deliver on critical services while at the same time combating rampant corruption associated with the abolished county and municipal counties.
Of major concern for the new units – particularly in Nairobi, is the need to restructure the human resource aspect of their counties and eradicate the so-called ghost workforce.
If they are serious about serving the people, the governors should avoid self-interest, political interference, ethnicity, nepotism and patronage. They need to consult the communities as regularly as is reasonably possible. And the stage is set for the governors and assemblies as they start to demand their fair share from the national government as stipulated by the new laws.
The new Constitution guarantees 15 per cent equitable share of total revenues to county governments on top of what they raise in local taxes. The Commission on Revenue Allocation has suggested counties need over 30 per cent because the country’s guaranteed share is too low for the functions they are to perform.
Counties have fully elected leaders, control over their finances, and administrative power in their areas of responsibility as laid out by the Constitution. The Constitution foresees three years of transition, and during this period, the financial and administrative control is partial, while the political control is total. The new system will make it harder for the national government to claw back financial and administrative control.
Policy issues
However, the Constitution gives the national government control over policy in many areas, such as health and agriculture, and this administrative power may be used to reduce county financial control by forcing counties to spend money in particular ways.
The fact that counties are guaranteed less than what they need suggests that their independence can be undermined and their autonomy could be eroded easily.
Across the world, central governments often try to undermine local governments and maintain their grip on finances and administration. Their ability to do this depends in part on the sequence of decentralisation.
In the new executive administrative structure unveiled on Thursday by President Uhuru Kenyatta, he gave special focus to the youth, gender, devolution, planning as well as national cohesion and integration, placing them all under the presidency.
Uhuru announced that two ministries; Interior and Coordination of National Government and that of Devolution and Planning, would be placed under him and Deputy President William Ruto. This means that the two leaders will oversee the functions of either of the two ministries, depending on which they pick.
This could also lead county officials of having little fiscal room to respond to local concerns because the national governments will force them to implement a series of national policies through transfers. However, if greater citizen access to key social services is a goal of devolution, then unmitigated county autonomy is not always the answer.
